The Big Comfy Cou--er--Brother

That Was Supposed to Happen

Even before babies learn to talk, they begin imitating their parents' speech. There may not be any words, but the stream of gibberish is richly imbued with emotional meaning. They also learn to imitate the nuance of pauses and intonation found in adult speech patterns. Add in extra "communication channels" like gestures, body language, and facial expression, and Baby is actually conveying an astonishing amount of incredibly meaningful information. Of course, all of this potent communication ability is eventually augmented one step further with the addition of a linguistic punch, the use of words and language, to add yet another layer of meaning. (Here's a funny example of what this looks like in an advanced stage.)

Over the last year or so, Shiloh and I have been working on developing these communication channels (also called "modes" in development jargon), and Shiloh's gotten very good with body language and facial expression. He's even fairly good at simple gestures, and can communicate very strong emotions in his inflection. But so far we haven't witnessed an attempt to mimic the nuance of adult speech patterns -- until last Friday.

I was getting Shiloh to practice making very specific sounds by asking him to tell me what kind of animal we should look up by imitating their sounds. After going down a short list, I threw in the catchphrase of a character on his favorite TV show (Widget from Wubbzy). At around the 37-second mark, he responds to my prompt by imitating her phrase exactly. He doesn't say the words, of course, but he does imitate the tone and intonation exactly. Which means that the imitation of adult speech patterns is finally beginning to emerge. We don't expect him to be hosting his own talk show by tomorrow morning, of course, but we're one definite step closer to the goal.

The Artist

When Shiloh and I draw together, we both have paper and pencils and draw the same thing at the same time. This is an example of a parallel activity, and is meant to underscore imitation and also to spark initiative.

On Wednesday, we were both drawing whales. Up to this point, Shiloh hasn't known exactly how to go about drawing things he's thinking of (self-expression isn't exactly his forte), so he usually just scribbles.

I didn't expect this day to be much different, so I was drawing and commenting aloud about what I was drawing and not paying a whole lot of attention to what Shiloh was doing. "Now I'm drawing the nose like this," I said, "And now the flippers and oh! He needs a tail."

When I was finished I looked over at his drawing and was delighted to see this:

Note the obvious nose (up-and-down strokes on the left), flippers (v-shaped lines on the bottom) and tail (the long streak going up and off to the right). The scribbles closer to the middle are probably his attempt to make an eye (he's not so good at making dots). I added an eye there, and a mouth, but the rest is entirely his. Interestingly, his whale was positioned almost identically on the page to mine.

The Show-Off

Shiloh watches TV from interesting positions, reminding me of Katie's odd reading contortions. I decided to take a picture of this funny position on Sunday...

And guess who just had to run up and steal the show just as I was snapping the picture. What a ham.

The Onion Man

This happens every time I chop onions. Shiloh, eager to help by scooping the freshly chopped vegetables into a bowl, leans in close and is surprised when his eyes start to burn and water. He usually reacts with a surprised squeal, but after wiping his eyes he heads right back into the action. We think this is more hilarious every time it happens.

Southern Bella

Ella eating grits for the first time. Grits are AWESOME.


Ella eating pulled pork for the first time.


It's DELICIOUS!

Of Late

I found Shiloh in the living room yesterday morning drinking from Ella's bottle. Apparently he was thirsty but was too lazy to get up and fix his own drink. Ha!


Ella getting out of the tub this morning in her new frog blanket.